


Over the Summer my Mother Suffered From Cancer.

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-09 23:32:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10424265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 7th-grade English assignments aren't supposed to be all that complex, especially the first one assigned to the year. No one was surprised when we got a little sheet of paper reading, "What I did over Summer Break." I've done this assignment more times than I can count. I know what they want to hear. I went to summer camp, I slept over my friend's house, I went hiking. Not that they don't want to hear about me and my mom watching a whole season of "The Wonder Years", while she was getting chemo, or how we swore off watching Grey's Anatomy for a year and a half, for obvious reason. No, it's just I wasn't ready to tell. So I wrote, my mom got cancer, she's better now. I didn't write how we'd come up with new fun things to do instead of getting our nails done, because she can't feel her fingers, and a cut would go unnoticed and get infected. Or how every time she wants to know how something feels I feel it for her and describe it best I can. Or how the machine that deposited, the chemo in her body would beep every 3 minutes and 50 seconds. I timed it. We still don't know why it did that. But 7th-grade English assignments aren't that complex. So here's what I could have said.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My Mother](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+Mother).



I remember that morning vividly. I woke myself up early, I took a shower and put on laundry. I was so proud of myself. I decided this was the summer where I'd get my shit together. My mom and dad woke up and went downstairs, I stayed upstair, reading. My brother woke up and slinked down too. I thought nothing when I heard my dad call me "Brigid?"  
I looked up and checked the time. It wasn't Sunday and I wasn't going to church, I didn't have anything planned for the rest of the day. I went down too.   
My brother, dad, and mom were sitting quietly in the family room. I sat down.   
"Brigid. Patrick. We have something to tell you."  
In the back of my head, I heard myself say "Did grandma die?" "Wow, who has cancer?"  
For some reason, thank god, I didn't say any of those things. Because my mom did. My mom had cancer. I remember not breaking into sobs but slowly letting a few tears trickled out of my eyes, blinding my vision. I don't remember what I said but I asked a few questions. Then I went upstairs. I texted my friends. I had to tell someone. I didn't know how to use the internet at that time, so I was depending on a few 12-year-olds, to console me. I think they asked what kind of cancer. I went back downstairs to ask. My dad was watching TV, my mom was read the paper. It looked so normal, I forgot for a few moments. That happens a lot. I asked. My dad said "Why? So you can do some research?"  
Before thinking it through I said "No so I can tell my friends."   
My dad's face flashed, I think he was going to protest. My mom interrupted him "She has to be able to tell her friends."  
The way she said seemed like she'd read it out of a brochure, "How Kids Deal With Cancer"  
Didn't make it any less true.  
So I told them. The rest of that day is a lost memory. I have no recollection of dinner. Or anything else. I think there was a lot of crying.  
3 days later, my mom and dad drove to a Dr. appointment, I came along. As I looked at the window, of the Boston Hospital, Cancer sunk in.  
Have you ever scrolled through Facebook? Instagram? Just Youtube? Ever come across, a video about Cancer, or a person with it? Probably. You might watch it. Say they're so brave when you see them cross the finish line of a marathon. Or frown when the statistics come up saying Lung Cancer has been up lately.   
But that's all it is to you, a statistic or a cute story you'll forget in a day. I was trained to think of Cancer as a bonding lurking evil that would wait for the day, I smoked, or forgot sunscreen to pounce on me. But it's not that. It's not always visible. My mom kept all her hair. She was tired from chemo but other than that you wouldn't have known she had Cancer. She had surgery before she had chemo. Apparently, that's backward, from the way they usually do it. I remember the nights we spent watching "Wonder Years" and other movies together. I'd get cake and she'd get pudding. But it wasn't always mother-daughter bonding. One of the first times I saw her after the surgery, it was pretty tense, so when the machine next to her, broke. I started to laugh, loudly and it a pretty obviously fake way. No one else did. It was awful. I started a support group when just before I turned 13. Everyone one else was 14-17 or 5-8. I cried, there. Not cause my mom had cancer but because I could, and no one would pity me, and no one would look at me weird. I cried because even there I didn't quite fit in but they didn't care. We made ornaments, and I had a cup of whip cream. I want to go back. It's been 3 years since my mom was diagnosed, and 2 since she was cured. She has very few side effects. People still ask hows she's doing, and looking at me before saying anything about cancer. As if asking for permission. We never got the Cancer shirt, and whenever we go past a Breast Cancer donation bin we snicker. Its a joke between us that Breast Cancer had a better publisict and the other cancers secretly hate it.So, 3 years ago My Mother Was Diagnosed With Cancer, she's fine now.

**Author's Note:**

> This was hard for me to write. I hope you realize this is based off a true story, my story. My mother was diagnosed with Colin Cancer the summer of 2014. She was declared cancer free about a year later. She is fine now, but still can't feel her toes. I'll update the next time I get word, of how the feeling in her toes are.


End file.
